Welcome from the Editors-in-Chief

Samaa Haridi and Julien Fouret

For this second issue of the ICC Bulletin, we present five sections, featuring a diverse range of topical contributions from our authors.

The Bulletin begins with an In Memoriam by Alexis Mourre, dedicated to the late President of Tunisia, Beji Caïd Essebsi, who in addition to steering his country through a democratic transition after the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, served as arbitrator with ICC and shared his wisdom with those who were fortunate to cross paths with him.

The Global Developments section features three contributions highlighting three countries: (i) Singapore, with an examination of the anti-suit injunction vs the anti-enforcement injunction and the risks involved with engaging in foreign litigation to the detriment of a prior arbitration; (ii) France, where the Paris Court of Appeal recently upheld an ICSID Additional Facility Award; and (iii) Sweden, with a Supreme Court decision establishing high threshold for the annulment of Arbitral Awards, confirming that the starting point of the reviewing judge is that decisions on jurisdiction and procedural matters are presumed correct.

In the Commentary section, we publish the keynote speech of the President of the International Court of Justice, Abdulqawi A. Yusuf, during ICC’s 3rd European Conference ‘Reforming International Investment Arbitration: A Plea for a more Institutionalized and Coherent System’ ; and a study on ‘The Prague Rules: Arbitral Efficiency under the Lens’ that considers the current dominant approach in international arbitration and the extent to which the Prague Rules may help bring more efficiency to the arbitration process and related challenges.

We also feature insights from the ICC Institute of World Business Law with ‘Dealing with Privilege Claims in International Arbitration, A Pragmatic Approach’. This article highlights the disparity in the local approaches to privilege and offers ways to achieve the right balance between the parties’ expectations and procedural fairness.

The ICC Activities section offers reports on some of the key ICC programing during this first half of 2019, including an ICC event in Boston titled ‘International Arbitration of Life Sciences Disputes: Key Issues and Best Practices’; and an ICC conference in Paris on ‘Understanding Chinese state-owned entities’. The section also includes reports on the ICC Regional Conferences in Africa and Asia last June.

Finally, our Book Review section is dedicated to a review of a French publication by Gustavo Scheffer da Silveira titled ‘Contrats internationaux de construction: un guide pratique des techniques de résolution échelonnée des litiges’. Our reviewer offers a glimpse into the book, describing all the elements of construction disputes which, together, form a complex web that the publication helpfully analyses, offering a practical approach to resolving such disputes.

We once more thank our contributors, our Editorial Board members, Stéphanie Torkomyan, ICC Dispute Resolution Publications’ Manager, and Claire Héraud, Senior Publications Assistant (DRS_Publications@iccwbo.org).

We hope you enjoy reading this new edition of the Bulletin.